The Trancer

  But I tried my best…

  Minoru was wrapped up in his thoughts when the Professor’s voice reached him again. “By the way…”

  “Y-yes?”

  “Have you given any thought to what we talked about before?”

  Minoru knew right away what she was talking about, but he still looked down, unable to give an immediate reply. Feeling her eyes on him as she intently awaited his response, he answered haltingly, searching for the right words.

  “…Yes…I understand that it would be best if I proceed as you suggested, Professor. But to be honest…I’m not sure if I can do it. Moving away…transferring to a new school…”

  “Nonetheless, Mikkun…” Still holding her café au lait, the Professor spoke in a voice that was at once quite serious and adorable. “Your request in exchange for joining the SFD was for Chief Himi to use his abilities to ‘erase any memories of you from existence,’ wasn’t it? If that day comes, won’t you have to move and change schools, anyway? Maybe you can think of this as practice for all that.”

  “…That’s true, but…”

  The Professor’s reasons for suggesting that Minoru move to SFD Headquarters were twofold: so that he would be more immediately available to fight against the Ruby Eyes and to prevent them from targeting his stepsister, Norie Yoshimizu. Ruby Eyes and Jet Eyes like Minoru and the others could detect the use of one another’s abilities from a fair distance away, so if Minoru were ever to activate his protective shell at home, there was a strong possibility that a Ruby Eye would figure out where he lived and attack Norie.

  No, there was more than a possibility—the first Ruby Eye Minoru had fought, the Biter, had already used just such a tactic. He’d saved Norie that time, but he couldn’t afford to let that happen again.

  But…

  At the school he currently attended, Yoshiki High School in Saitama, Minoru had gone to great pains to ensure that his presence was barely noticed by the other students. To Minoru, who feared above all else the creation of more painful memories, the very thought of going into a new and unknown environment was unbearable. Just picturing himself transferring into a new school and standing in front of a class of strangers made him break into a cold sweat.

  Minoru sank into silence and faintly heard the Professor heave another sigh.

  “Well…having you transfer schools is mostly just a matter of convenience, so that there won’t be any holes in your academic records. You don’t necessarily have to go every day, but you can’t exactly skip all the time, either. Take that into consideration and get back to me soon, okay? Well, anyway… I’d like to have some chocolate cake tonight, Mikkun.”

  “…Yes, ma’am.”

  Giving her a meek nod, Minoru roused himself, rose from the couch, and headed toward the kitchen, which stood across from the experiment space.

  3

  “…Well, it is too bad that the experiment didn’t work, but even if it had, in the end I’d still be going in alone today.”

  Awakening from his brief reverie, Minoru voiced this thought aloud, and Yumiko responded without removing her face mask from his.

  “…Why?”

  “I mean, if something happened inside and my protective shell vanished, both of us would go down at once. It’s better to minimize our losses, right?”

  “I don’t like the way you said that one bit.”

  With one more irritated huff, Yumiko pulled away.

  At last, the clock display ticked up to 10:00 a.m. Restoring their connection to the STS channel, Yumiko spoke now in a much more composed, businesslike voice. “Well then, let’s begin the operation. Isolator, please proceed to the air lock of nuclear reactor containment vessel number one.”

  “R…roger that.”

  Taking a deep breath, Minoru stepped forward with his right foot.

  He walked slowly and deliberately, mindful of the radiation screens that stood to his left and right. Along the way, he checked the screen of his wrist communicator, but the radiation levels in the air hadn’t risen much just yet. In a little over a minute, he halted, having reached the first checkpoint.

  “I’ve arrived in front of the air lock.”

  “Radioactivity level report?”

  “Um…currently 9.3 microsieverts per hour.”

  “Roger. Now please begin the locking mechanism release procedure.”

  “Roger,” Minoru responded, glancing over his shoulder. Yumiko and the two Self-Defense Forces personnel stood motionless next to the parked vehicle, watching him from about twenty-one meters away. Kakinari waved at him vigorously, and he quickly turned back before the urge to wave overcame him.

  Up close, he could see that the wall of the containment vessel was cracked and stained, the damage unchanged from the incident eight long years ago. The paint on the steel doors of the air lock was peeling away in places, too, with brown specks of rust blooming here and there along its surface.

  Above the door handle, a red light indicated that the lock was currently closed.

  On the other side of this door was a death trap, full of lethal levels of radioactivity. In fact, since they had measured the radioactivity levels in SFD Headquarters to be about 0.03 microsieverts per hour, the radioactivity levels out here were already three hundred times that of the Tokyo metropolitan area.

  Naturally, his adoptive stepsister and guardian, Norie, didn’t know anything about today’s mission. As a matter of fact, any time he had SFD business, he simply told her he was going to “a prep school in Tokyo.” Since he did occasionally study with Yumiko and the Professor at SFD Headquarters in their free time, it wasn’t a total lie, but that didn’t change the fact that he was deceiving his beloved stepsister.

  However, in reality he had already committed the ultimate betrayal of Norie by joining the SFD in exchange for the promise of eventually being erased from the memories of everyone around him.

  It wasn’t as though Minoru wanted to be separated from Norie. She was the only person with whom he could create new memories every day without fear. He would have liked to continue living with her…but doing so would mean tying the thirty-year-old to the role of being Minoru’s guardian indefinitely.

  No, things would be better for her this way. In order to allow Norie to forget about her adopted brother and live for her own happiness, Minoru would continue to fulfill his duties with the SFD to the best of his abilities—even if it meant fighting more Ruby Eyes…or retrieving a probe robot from a nuclear power plant.

  “…Releasing the lock now,” Minoru said into the headset, and he stepped up to the double doors to grip the locking mechanism with both hands. Just as he’d been instructed in a lecture earlier, he turned it to the left with all his might. It was difficult to budge at first—no doubt it hadn’t been opened very often, especially in recent years—but it was nothing his Third Eye–given strength couldn’t handle. After three full turns, there was the sound of the bolt creaking loose, and the indicator light turned bright green.

  “Release complete.”

  “Roger that,” Yumiko responded, her voice a bit tenser than before. “Commence opening the air lock.”

  “Understood…” Minoru shifted both hands back to the handle and again grasped it tightly.

  Though they hadn’t mentioned it to the Self-Defense Forces members, there was one more thing he had to do before opening these doors. Breathing in quietly through his mask, he filled his lungs with air and activated the small black sphere-shaped parasite that lived in his chest—his “Third Eye.”

  Minoru’s body floated up slightly inside his protective suit, and all outside sound was cut off at once. His view of his surroundings through the lead glass of his mask was tinted blue. Even the pressure of the mask’s elastic band and the weight of the tungsten-lined suit disappeared.

  This was Minoru’s power as a Jet Eye: the ability to create a colorless, transparent, and utterly indestructible protective shell that projected about three centimeters around his entire body. In other wor
ds, Minoru was currently encased in an insulated inner shell that fit to the contours of his body (and the small earpiece in his left ear), which in turn was protected by the tungsten suit.

  As his colleagues had confirmed in experiments at SFD Headquarters, the shell could deflect not only physical attacks but also electromagnetic and radio waves. As a result, it had so far been impossible to communicate via radio once Minoru was inside the shell, but they had recently come up with a solution.

  Between the headset in his left ear and the left side of his protective mask, there was a white LED light transmitter. The device was automatically activated when the protective shell cut off communications, at which point radio waves from Yumiko’s headset and the wrist communicator were now captured by the mask’s internal receiver, converted into light-wave communication in order to pass through the protective shell, and changed back into sound waves in Minoru’s earpiece. In the test run back at headquarters, it had permitted communication with no problems aside from a bit of time lag; DD, who designed and produced the device, had been extremely proud.

  I hope it still works now that we’re in the field…

  “I will now open the first door. Please be mindful of the radiation levels,” Minoru said hesitantly into the headset.

  “Roger. Be careful on your end, too.”

  Yumiko’s voice came through loud and clear, if with a little more white noise than before. Breathing a sigh of relief, Minoru checked that his connection with the wrist communicator was working as well, then grabbed hold of the door handle through the shield. Pushing against it hard, he slowly slid the door to the left.

  The small microphone in his earpiece picked up the loud grating noise as the first door creaked along the rusted rail. When it had moved about fifteen centimeters open, Minoru let go momentarily to check his wrist communicator. Though the radiation levels had increased to fifteen microsieverts per hour, it was still not high enough to be a serious threat.

  A second door awaited behind the first, visually identical to the first except that it had much less visible wear and tear. Since this door was already unlocked, he had only to grab on to the handle once again.

  “Opening the second door.”

  “Go ahead.”

  After this brief exchange, Minoru pushed with about the same force as before.

  Although the rail and wheels weren’t rusted, the second door put up much more resistance than the first. It was as though the building itself was refusing to be opened. Nonetheless, Minoru planted his feet firmly and pushed the door with all his weight.

  The heavy steel door gave a mighty creak and moved about twenty centimeters. And then…

  BREEEEEEE!! A high-pitched warning sound screeched through Minoru’s earpiece, and he caught his breath.

  A glance at his wrist communicator showed that radiation levels had now reached 2.8 millisieverts—180 times higher than before he had opened the door. Of course, this was the level detected by the wrist communicator outside his shell; in theory, not one single beta ray would be reaching Minoru’s body. If any of the radiation did get through, a separate counter inside his headset should set off an alarm to let him know. Still, he felt a bead of sweat drip down his forehead.

  “Th…the air lock is now open. Radiation levels at 2.8 millisieverts.”

  “R…roger.” Yumiko’s voice sounded a bit ill at ease, too.

  “Whoa, wait a sec! Two-point-eight?!” This voice was obviously Kakinari. “You’re seriously still fine at a level like that?!”

  “Y…yes, it’s fine.”

  It is fine, right?! Minoru sent a silent and emphatic plea toward the Third Eye in his chest.

  “I’ll continue toward the nuclear reactor containment room now.”

  “…At the first sign of danger, you are to retreat immediately, no matter what. You know that, right?”

  “Roger that. I’m going in!”

  This is part of my duties, too… A part that only I can do, as a matter of fact. Directing a silent encouragement toward himself this time, Minoru stepped over the rail and into the building.

  In the dim light of the nuclear reactor containment building, dust particles danced silently in the rays of winter light shining through the door behind him. Since the reactor itself was kept in a vacuum-sealed vessel, there should be no danger of radioactive material leaking into this part of the building. Nonetheless it was probably best to keep the time that the air lock was open to a minimum.

  Changing the wrist communicator’s display back to the map and switching on the LED lamp on the forehead of his protective mask, Minoru stepped into the wide passageway. He proceeded with caution, following the red navigation line displayed on his map.

  Soon, he was able to see a bulky radiation blocker that had likely been installed after the incident. Since this would also interfere with the radio waves of his communicator, he reached into a pouch on the waist of his protective suit, pulled out a battery-operated repeater, and placed it next to the blocker.

  “Repeater number one, installation complete.”

  “Understood. Signal levels satisfactory.”

  “Proceeding now.”

  By the time he had traveled another five meters or so, Minoru’s surroundings were almost completely pitch-black. The radiation level on his wrist communicator now measured four millisieverts per hour, the air in the hallway polluted by radioactive elements scattered by the damaged containment vessel. Just standing in this hallway for fifteen minutes would bring your exposure level up to one millisievert, the maximum annual dosage deemed safe by the International Commission on Radiological Protection.

  Since particle radiation from emitted alpha particles or photons could be blocked with even a sheet of plastic, they posed no threat to the suited-up Minoru except through internal exposure, but the real problem was electromagnetic radiation like gamma rays and X-rays. At least ten centimeters of lead would be required to block out gamma rays, meaning that the thin layer of tungsten inside Minoru’s suit would do little to protect him.

  It was strange to think about. Gamma radiation was nothing but electromagnetic waves with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, yet they could damage a living being’s DNA by inhibiting the repairing abilities of cells and, in the worst-case scenario, even lead to death. If the Earth’s atmosphere didn’t absorb the gamma rays that constantly rain down from outer space, all of humanity would have long since perished.

  The survival of human beings is really based on a delicate, dangerous balance, Minoru thought. The shifting of tectonic plates, the eruption of volcanoes, a slight increase in the average temperature—any one of these things could cause that delicate balance to crumble. And Ruby Eyes could be a threat to that balance, too. What set them apart from the other disasters, though, was that they were beings with minds of their own.

  He had been deeply alarmed when Nishikida had pointed out this possibility earlier, but thinking back now, he remembered that Igniter had intended to turn all the water in Tokyo into hydrogen and cause a massively destructive explosion. And it was entirely possible that another Ruby Eye could target this nuclear reactor in Tokyo Bay as a show of their power. In order to protect the peaceful lives of the people closest to him—his stepsister, Norie; his friend from the track and field club, Tomomi Minowa—he had to make sure this mission succeeded.

  With these thoughts churning in his mind, Minoru continued his slow progress through the dark hallway.

  The map on his wrist communicator indicated that the distance from the air lock to the containment vessel was only about eighteen meters, but to Minoru it felt ten times as long. Finally, a plain rectangular door appeared in the wall before him. Finding a label that read CONTAINMENT VESSEL AIR LOCK, Minoru took a short breath.

  “I’ve arrived at the containment vessel door. Radiation levels, fifteen millisieverts per hour.”

  “Roger……a bit farthe……od luck.”

  Since it was now coming through three different repeaters, Yumi
ko’s response was choppy with noise. Nonetheless, encouraged by the sound of his partner’s voice, Minoru gave a loud “Right!” in response as he stepped up to the door.

  Compared to the building entrance above, this set of double doors was much smaller. However, the first set of doors had nothing on the pressure of these off-white, steel-armored doors.

  Since the incident in 2011, not a single human had been inside these doors. During his briefing, Minoru had seen the images collected by the probe robot before its signal was lost, but seeing up close how the doors had been ravaged by the radiation, he had a keen sense of just how terrifying the situation was inside the containment vessel. Just thinking about the fact that he was about to go inside was enough to make his heart leap into his throat, but he knew he couldn’t turn back now.

  Through his protective shell and suit, Minoru touched his hand to his left cheek, where the Divider, SFD member Olivier Saitou, had punched him not long ago. Then he clenched his hand into a fist.

  “I’m opening the containment vessel!” he shouted, half at himself. Reaching out and gingerly grasping the handle, he unlocked the door and pulled it open. He met with a great deal of resistance at first, but soon the stuck gaskets came loose, and the door creaked open for the first time in eight years.

  Inside was a room only about a meter around, with another set of double doors. According to the information Minoru had received, an interlocking mechanism prevented the doors from being opened at the same time, so once he entered the room, the threshold would close back up.

  With this, Minoru was now completely cut off from all contact with Yumiko. He would have to make decisions on his own from this point on. The agreement was that if more than twenty minutes passed without any communication from Minoru, Yumiko would assume that something had happened and come rushing in—so he couldn’t afford to let a single second go to waste.

  Turning around, he shook off his fear of unlocking the next door and gave it a push. Once again, the door slowly came unstuck with a loud noise and began to move. Three centimeters…five centimeters…the opening widened ever so slowly.